Successive waves of demonstrations have spread to major cities and towns in Morocco, including Rabat, Casablanca, Tangier, and Tetouan, with protesters calling for an end to corruption, more job opportunities, and better healthcare and education.
The GenZ 212 movement (named for the age of the activists involved and Morocco’s country code) mushroomed very fast, surging to more than 180,000 members on its Discord platform. Although three protesters have been killed in clashes with security forces, the movement has emphasised its peaceful nature, issuing repeated statements rejecting all forms of violence, looting, rioting, and vandalism.
The protests, which were reportedly sparked by the death of eight pregnant women in a public hospital in late September, have largely focused on deteriorating public services, a decline in living standards, high unemployment, corruption, and misplaced government priorities. Moroccan Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch has invited protesters to engage in a “transparent dialogue” and “to present practical proposals to remedy the problems.”
Like the Arab Spring revolutions that broke out some 15 years before it, GenZ 212 is largely leaderless and decentralised, expressing its grievances and demands, and organising itself through social media platforms such as Discord, TikTok, and Instagram. Comprising the 13 to 28-year-old age bracket, Generation Z accounts for roughly 26 per cent of Morocco’s population according to official census figures. It is characterised by tech savvy and robust social media activity. While most of these young people are politically unaffiliated, they share a common frustration with the stagnation of a public realm long dominated by traditional political elites.
As the protests continued, their demands have widened beyond calls to improve the neglected healthcare and education sectors and to remedy unemployment – the major challenges facing the country’s youth and its university graduates in particular. In general, the demonstrations reflect mounting social discontent with accumulating crises related to rising living costs, declining household purchasing power, and widening disparities between urban and rural communities, with most investment and funding channelled into the former while smaller towns and villages lack sufficient infrastructure and development opportunities.
According to a recent report by the African Centre for Strategic Studies and Digitalisation, only 35 per cent of Moroccan university graduates work in fields related to their area of specialisation, while 40 per cent are employed in unrelated fields. These figures reflect the lack of alignment between academic training and labour market demands. The report also noted that poverty in Morocco is predominantly rural, with 72 per cent of the poor living in villages. Morocco ranked 120th out of 193 countries in the 2025 UNDP Human Development Index.
Other reports by international agencies have also confirmed the deepening disparities between urban and rural areas in Morocco. World Bank figures show that urban areas capture the lion’s share of public investment, which helps explain high rural unemployment rates. The lack of basic infrastructure – roads, bridges, hospitals, etc – has contributed to hampering economic development prospects in Moroccan villages.
While the government has attempted to revive the economy in recent years, its efforts have fallen short of people’s aspirations for economic growth and social justice. Moroccan economic performance has remained sluggish and uneven, with slow post-pandemic recovery. The problems have also been aggravated the growing tensions between Morocco and Algeria over borders and their rivalry over Western Sahara.
The GenZ 212 protests, if largely focused on economic issues, throw into relief the younger generation’s frustration with the lack of avenues for meaningful political participation. Political bodies and organisations are largely dominated by a handful of political currents, generally driven by ideological orientations at odds with the outlooks and aspirations of Morocco’s Gen Z. This helps explain the protesters’ calls for greater transparency in government spending, especially in terms of development allocations. While they have not, so far, explicitly called for political reform, the protesters have also demanded that the government resign over its “failure to protect the constitutional rights of Moroccans and respond to their social demands.”
Generally, the youth-led protests can be seen as an assertion of the need for equal opportunities and immediate solutions, not deferred promises. The Akhannouch government had come to power by presenting itself as the option that would deliver on its pledges to foster economic development and better standards of living. Clearly feeling the heat, it has vowed to take concrete measures to improve living standards and address other social grievances.
To compound the pressures on the government, the protests – if they continue to escalate – may exact a significant toll on strategic sectors, such as tourism and trade. Losses could be difficult to recover from given the state of a global economy constrained and jeopardised by a range of regional and international geopolitical factors.
Meanwhile, the GenZ 212 protests are indicative of a deeper structural transformation taking place within Moroccan society. It will have effects on Moroccan economic and social policies in the short term, but it will also have profound implications for political life in the country in the long term.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 9 October, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: